Images of Bureaucracy: A Tri-Ethnic Consideration

Abstract

E arlier studies of the images of government service held by high school students assumed that they have relatively intelligible attitudes toward public service, and these attitudes are related to the question of desirability of governmental employment. Another generally accepted view is that government service is potentially more attractive to lower class and minority group youths than for middle to upper-middle class students. A Brookings Institution study of public images of the federal bureaucracy, for example, found the more successful a person or his family, as measured by income, the less is the appeal of federal employment.' Other studies have found that such variables as race, educational level, sex, and family employment history are associated with attitudes toward employment at different levels of government: federal, state, and local.2 Underlying most of the data and analysis in these studies is an assumption that high school and college students are reacting rationally to queries concerning governmental employment, and these attitudes are part and parcel of a general set of images toward government itself. The argument is made that these attitudes are important because they are translated later in adult life into decisions of whether or not to enter public service. This assumption is based upon political socialization theories which posit that attitudes toward government are firmly fixed by the time an individual is of high school age, and these attitudes will generally influence his or her adult actions. This study questions these assumptions by examining the images of the three levels of government held by Anglo, Mexican-American, and black high school students in San Antonio, Texas. (These terms are used throughout this * Earlier studies of the images of government service held by students assume that government service is potentially more attractive to lower class and minority group youths than for the middle and upper middle class. This study involves a sample of 645 San Antonio area high school juniors and seniors, proportionately representative of the Mexican-American, black, and Anglo ethnic populations of this metropolitan area of a million persons. The research indicates that ethnicity continues to be an important factor in attitudes toward public service, but there appears to be less of a rational assessment of public service across the three subcultures than earlier assumptions suggest. Preference for employment at the three levels of bureaucracy appears to have little relationship to the students' perceptions of the most effective and desirable sources of policy implementation.